AWS seems to have a helluva lot of failure points too. I’m not an IT expert, but I’m pretty sure this is far from the first time this has happened, correct?

I’m even starting to feel like a crotchety old man by wondering if I should be purchasing some physical precious metals.

Look at all of us, wildly ahead of the curve!! We are the future!

But for real, the intense concentration of information into what’s ultimately little tiny fail points can’t ever end well. We’ve gotten a few of these wakeup calls now. In my country a few years ago, one of the main cellular networks suddenly went down, and it dragged down all of our payment systems as an added bonus, plus 911 coverage and all sorts of other failures. That afternoon you couldn’t get money depending on who your bank was, you almost certainly couldn’t make a payment anywhere, couldn’t call for help, etc. It ultimately only lasted a few hours, but it put the politicians in a frenzy. Of course nothing really concrete has been done about it either.

And actually as a correction, I think it was Love Connection and Married with Children when that commercial was on, and not the Simpsons. Regardless, Frankie and Johnny are internationally immortal.

It is, and the funny thing is, I’m actually Canadian. That commercial used to be on during the Simpsons, it was an affiliate channel they used to broadcast into Canada.

Although I did happen to visit NOLA a couple of years ago for work, and had a great time. I even thought of Frankie and Johnny and was prepared to go, as I figured my sister would get a kick out of a selfie in front of the store. Unfortunately I found out it wasn’t there anymore :(

Like the special man says:

Lettahaveeeeeem

At some point even visa is going to back off though. I wonder how much money goes through Steam? Maybe if them and some other orgs band together and say fine, we won’t accept Visa or MasterCard at all then, there’s going to be some hell to pay. This can go both ways. Lots of third parties would be caught in the crossfire too, like order payment processors.

If they really wanted to comply, they could find a workaround. This Visa excuse is kind of lame. Enable visa payments to purchase steam points (in exact amounts), that can then be used to buy a game for example, and work around it.

It’s not like this really affects my life, as I’m not a horny teenager or old man buying these games, but it’s the point here that matters. Letting a payment processor dictate content is insane.

Maybe it’s time to go back to a pre-platform PC world?

I used to do that. I actually started with an iPod touch back in the day, then switched to an iPad/iPhone combo when iPads and the iPhone 4 came out. I miss their books app, which I still feel is the best e-reader GUI. Their books seamlessly worked between devices too, I loved reading at home with the iPad and then I could just use my phone on the train when commuting, etc.

Problem is, Apple is the greasiest company in tech, and their customer service is probably the worst in the industry, and their cost to value ratio is also probably the worst.

I had a Google Nexus 9 tablet and I’ve tried using my android phones off and on, but the Google Books app just doesn’t do it for me.

A couple of years ago I wanted something a bit waterproof, so I could read on my floatie while in the pool. I ended up with a Kobo Libra Color, which I actually quite like. It’s an extra device to cart around but it’s nice and thin, you don’t notice it in a bag. I also don’t commute nearly as much nowadays, so it’s less of a factor. It’s still not the apple app, but you can still side load books and it’s definitely easier on the eyes over the longer term.